§ Statement of Purpose

The View from 1776 presents a framework to understand present-day issues from the viewpoint of the colonists who fought for American independence in 1776 and wrote the Constitution in 1787. Knowing and preserving those understandings, what might be called the unwritten constitution of our nation, is vital to preserving constitutional government. Without them, the bare words of the Constitution are just a Rorschach ink-blot that politicians, educators, and judges can interpret to mean anything they wish.

"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams, to the Officers of the First Brigade, Third Division, Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798.

§ American Traditions

§ People and Ideas

§ Decline of Western Civilization: a Snapshot

§ Books to Read

§ BUY MY BOOK

Friday, August 27, 2004

Is Morality Outmoded?

The two articles posted today deal with different aspects of the most fundamental danger facing the United States: not the Islamic radicalism of groups like Al Queda, but the unraveling of society itself.

To remain cohesive and vital, political societies must be governed by an unwritten constitution of shared values. Since the 1960s, liberalism has been adopted by roughly half of the nation’s citizens, either as some form of secular humanism, or as militantly radical movements like Students for a Democratic Society or Weatherman. They are vehemently opposed to the Judeo-Christian morality upon which the nation was founded.